


The One Where He Cheats

by thestanceyg



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 11:40:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16407803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestanceyg/pseuds/thestanceyg
Summary: She was planning to surprise her boyfriend after a tough case. Instead she finds him with another woman.





	The One Where He Cheats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dresupi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/gifts).



> This was a flash fic that is unbeta'd. All mistakes are my own.
> 
> For Dresupi who deserves some sunshine.

The wind was sharper than it had been just twenty minutes ago. She pulled her coat tighter around her and checked her phone again, wondering if maybe he had said something that would help her decide what to do.  She played with a seam on the sleeve of her jacket, trying to decide if she should stay or go. What a dumb idea it had been to try and surprise him like this. She knew he liked to walk in this park after work on nice days, but there was no guarantee he would do so today. She wondered why she hadn’t thought through this surprise more.

She heard fragments of a conversation behind her, though none of it close enough yet to make out. Her head turned into the wind to see if she could find the source of it. Through the brush she could just make out two shapes. She stared for a moment before realizing it was, indeed, her boyfriend, but just as she stood up to greet him, the wind carried their voices to her.

“Do you want to text her? Won’t she be expecting it?” the woman asked. Her voice was clear and confident.

“It’s not that important,” he said. She could just make out that he was holding the woman’s hand.

He might have gone on, but the sound of her heart beating faster thrummed in her ears. She had already stood and started to turn toward them, but now she was twisting to get away. They were on the path that would lead to the bench she had been on, and she didn’t plan to be there when they did.

_ He was cheating on her. _ The thought played over and over in her mind. Of course he was cheating on her. They lived in different cities and were both always traveling. Just how many girlfriends did he have?

She knew it had been too good to be true.

She needed to get out of here before he saw her. Her body didn’t respond appropriately with her choice, however, and with the sudden turn to move away, her foot didn’t move fast enough and her knee joint twisted wrong. She felt a pop and then shooting pain. The momentum of her turn and the sudden pain caused her to tumble into a heap, her head bouncing off the bench she had been sitting on.

She must have momentarily blacked out because when she opened her eyes, the woman was gently pressing on her shoulder to keep her down.

“Don’t try to get up yet,” she said in a calm tone, totally in command of the situation. “I’m worried about your head.”

Darcy blinked and tried to focus on the woman. As her surroundings came into focus, she realized Spencer was on the phone behind the blonde, and she realized this must have been the same woman he had been walking with; holding hands with. She recoiled a bit, not wanting help from the woman who had unknowingly caused her all this pain.

“Hey, hey,” the woman soothed. “Reid’s calling an ambulance now. He’s really worried about your head.” It was then Darcy noticed that there was blood on the woman’s hands. She must have cut herself when her head hit the bench. Head wounds always bled a lot. She still eyed the woman, unsure how she felt about all this. The woman was slim and blonde, and totally in command of herself and the situation. She was still warm and approachable, though. Darcy thought she might like her if the circumstances had been different; if her boyfriend hadn’t been cheating on her with this woman that was so many things she was not. None of that was the woman’s fault, though, so she tried to school her features to hide her initial unhappiness.

“Something popped in my knee,” she finally said. “When I was trying to turn. That’s why I fell.”

The woman nodded. “Is it okay if I touch your leg?” she asked, and Darcy hesitantly nodded her acceptance.  The blonde’s hands were firm as she slowly felt Darcy’s leg, starting at her ankle and moving up. When she touched her knee, Darcy let out a yelp as pain shot through her again.

“The ambulance will be here soon,” Spencer said, crouching down next to her. She recoiled a bit and tried to pull away. “Hey, try not to move too much,” he said, reaching out for her hand.

She snatched it off the concrete before he could make contact. “Don’t you dare touch me,” she hissed. He seemed taken aback by the venom in her voice. “Not after what you did,” she added, this time her voice was filled with more hurt than anger.

He shot a look over at his friend and she shrugged. His hand went out to Darcy’s hair like he was going to feel the knot she could feel forming, but his hand stopped, hanging in air as he reconsidered touching her after she had said not to. Her eyes stayed fixed on him, the pain in her knee helping fuel the burning in her eyes.

She was surprised to discover that the burning was not her just her resentment, but tears too. When they started to fall down her face, Spencer looked torn, wanting to comfort her, but not wanting to upset her more. She found his discomfort more pleasing than she cared to examine.

“Darcy…,” he said, trailing off, unsure of how to continue. “I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” she asked, disgusted. “Get away from me, Spencer Reid.” He moved away from her like she had slapped him. “Fucking sorry my ass,” she muttered to herself.

“Why are you here?” he asked, moving even further away from her.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to respond. “Why are you?” she asked instead, still spitting words more than speaking them.

“You know why,” he said, searching her face. “I love walking here, especially when work has been rough,” he finished, his voice almost a whisper. “Walking here helps me decompress; always has. But lately you help with that too.” He was staring at her in a way she didn’t understand.

Darcy could feel the tears welling again, but there were also sirens in the distance. She kept her mouth shut.

“Were you…,” he seemed to be putting thoughts together as he spoke. “Were you here for  _ me _ ?” 

She would have refused to answer on principle, but the angry lump in her throat wouldn’t allow her to respond anyway. His hand reached out for her again, and the damn broke, the tears rushed down her face and she yelled, “Don’t you fucking touch me!”

The blonde woman pulled him away from her as the paramedics arrived. She turned her focus onto them as they asked her question and explained what they were doing. 

She didn’t look back at Spencer.

* * *

Darcy was waiting to be taken for an MRI when the ER curtain parted and the blonde woman from the park walked in. Darcy eyed her warily, unsure why she was here.

“Spencer wanted to come back, but I convinced him it was a better idea if he waited until after I talked to you.” She made her way to the chair next to Darcy’s bed. Once she was seated, she looked at Darcy. “I don’t think we’ve actually met. I’m Jennifer, but my friends call me JJ.”

The name surprised her. JJ worked with Spencer. “I’ve heard of you,” she said slowly.

“Look, I’m not sure what he did to you, but it’s your right to tell him to fuck off. He’s just confused by your anger and worried that you’re hurt.” She gave Darcy a considering look before saying, “I know you don’t know me, but want to explain what happened?”

Darcy ran her tongue over her teeth while she thought.  _ Did _ she want to explain to this woman what had happened? “What do you know about me?” she asked instead.

“Honestly? Everything and nothing. Spencer’s been...tight lipped about you. We all knew you existed, but it took him a long time to admit that to us. We knew that something, some _ one _ was making him happier, and he was bouncing back from cases a lot better. We knew he was texting a lot more. We knew he had used a little vacation time from a trip unrelated to his mom. But what we didn’t know was that it was  _ you _ . He didn’t start talking about you until just two weeks ago, and even then, he didn’t use your name. I think he wanted to keep you separate from us; make sure you were something that was his and his alone.” She paused for a moment, and Darcy didn’t interrupt. She wasn’t sure how to put this all into perspective with what she had seen. “Two days ago, we were close to wrapping up our last case and he finally told your name. I didn’t ask him to share anything else, but it was clear that all that was on his mind when we were flying back yesterday was you.” JJ shifted her weight in her chair. “I think this case hit him harder than he expected, so today I convinced him to go for a walk in the park because I know it helps. I was actually trying to convince him to call or text you since you seem to help too, when we heard you cry out. He saw the blood and panicked a little, but immediately was on the phone, calling for the ambulance.”

“And then?” Darcy asked, suddenly feeling like she had made some inaccurate assumptions.

“And then I drove him here,”JJ said simply. “He was practically hyperventilating in the car. He couldn’t believe you were here, but then you were so mad at him, and he didn’t know why. He kept circling around it. Why were you here if you were mad at him?” Now JJ paused again and looked Darcy in the eye. “Do you want to say anything?”

“I…,” Darcy started, her mouth dry. “I had some unexpected days off and decided to surprise him,” she said slowly. “I knew the case had been hard from the messages he had sent, and I thought it would be nice for him to see me. I had decided to try the park before his apartment because it’s easier to sit and wait in the park then outside a door, but I was about to give up when I heard you two on the path.” Darcy paused and looked down at her fingers as she played with the blanket on her bed. She took a deep breath and looked JJ in the eye as she continued. “I didn’t hear much, just that he didn’t want to text someone I assumed was me and that it ‘wasn’t important,’ and that would have been bad enough…,” Darcy trailed as the lump formed in her throat again.

“But we were holding hands,” JJ said, picking up the thread of her thoughts. 

Darcy nodded. “And..., and I know he doesn’t do that with just anyone.”

JJ’s hands pressed against her mouth for a moment, and she took her own stabilizing breath before dropping them. “You thought he was cheating on you.” Darcy nodded. JJ’s hands covered hers, stopping the anxious movement. “Darcy, he’s not like that. He would never.” 

She noticed the wedding band on JJ’s finger and wanted to cry at her stupidity. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“There’s nothing to apologize for. It was just a ridiculous storm of all signs pointing to the wrong conclusion. I probably would have made it too.” She squeezed Darcy’s hand. “Can he come see you now? Would that be alright?”

Darcy closed her eyes. “I guess so,” she said. “Though I’m not looking forward to explaining what an idiot I am.” She closed her eyes tightly and then looked at JJ, grabbing her hand again before she could pull it away. “You don’t think he’ll break up with me, do you?”

JJ squeezed her hand again before pulling away. “I don’t understand how his mind works all the time, so I can't say” was all she said before leaving the room. Darcy stared at the fluttering curtain, wondering what that meant.

Darcy closed her eyes and tried not to think about that. The cut on her head had been cleaned, but was still tender, so she turned her head a bit to relieve the pressure on it. Her leg was starting to throb, but she couldn’t move it since they had placed it in an immobilizer so she couldn’t do further damage to it while they determined what had happened. The doctor thought it was a torn ACL, but wanted the MRI confirmation since any surgery she had done wouldn’t be done here, and he wanted to send her home prepared for whatever she needed to get done.

She didn’t want to think about that either, but she wasn’t sure what to focus on. She was saved from figuring out a new topic when she heard Spencer let out a breath that sounded like her name. She opened her eyes to see him taking a seat in the chair JJ had been in moment before. “Hi Spence,” she said softly.

He looked like he wanted to touch her, but his hands stayed firmly in his lap. He was almost vibrating with the energy it took to keep them in place. “Are you going to yell at me again?” he asked.

“No,” she said with a nod of her head. “But you might yell at me.”

“Why would I yell at you?” He eyes were focused solely on her. She would miss that if he ended things; the intensity of his gaze; how his entire being was focused on her and her alone.

She took a breath and ripped off the band aid. “Because I thought you were cheating on me with JJ.”

She watched the confusion become shock and prepared for his anger. Instead he laughed. “Why would you think that?” he wondered. His voice adorably confused.

Darcy licked her lips and noticed his eyes focusing there. “I saw you holding hands and heard you tell her texting me wasn’t important.”

He went very still at this and then his hands shot out for her, stopping just an inch before hers. She realized his dilemma and closed the gap, grasping her hands in his. “She was trying to cheer me up,” he said. “The case hit me hard, and she thought I should call you, but I was too embarrassed that it had hit me like it did. And as soon as I said that, we heard you cry out, and I was so excited to see you and worried because there was blood and then you were yelling at me, and-”

“-because I had made some incorrect assumptions-” she cut in.

“-all I could think about was how much I wanted to hold you close and make sure you were okay and I couldn’t do that because you were so mad at me.” He took a breath. “I never want to make you feel like that again. Thinking you hated me..I...it was worse than I anticipated.” She looked at him, confused. “I always assumed some day you would realize you were too good for me, that you would leave me, but having it play out was more painful than I thought.”

“Oh, Spence, no,” she said, rushing in. “How can you think that? If anything you’re too good for me. I would never hurt you like that. Not intentionally. I mean, I know I did, but I thought…”

“We both made silly assumptions,” he said. “Can we put them behind us?”

“Absolutely,” she said, the tightness in her chest lessening.

“You came to see me because you knew I needed you,” he said softly.

“I did,” she agreed. “Three full days off just for you if you want them.”

He smiled at her. “I want them and you.” He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm. “And I don’t want you to leave.”

“I’ll have to eventually,” she said, “but I won’t want to go.”

“Then we better make the most of these three days,” he said pulling out his phone.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Taking some vacation time. I need to show you that you’re the only one I want, and I plan on using all of the next three days to prove it.”

Darcy took in the heat in his eyes and flushed. “I like the sound of that.”


End file.
